The invention is related to a multi-purpose refrigerator with a freezer compartment, a refrigerator compartment and a food storage structure provided near the refrigerator door having an additional door.
The conventional refrigerator used for a domestic purpose these days is divided into a refrigerator compartment and a freezing compartment. The freezer compartment stores food products to be frozen and the refrigerator compartment stores food products to be kept at a fresh condition and/or at a higher temperature. However, many kinds of food products, in particular, canned food products, need broader temperature ranges which make it necessary to sort the food products respectively by temperature requirement which requires the development of a refrigerator that can store a variety of food products at respective temperatures.
Particularly, it is known that an intermediate temperature compartment is installed within the refrigerator compartment having a separate exclusive door so that users can pick out food stuffs therefrom which are stored in the intermediate temperature compartment without opening the refrigerator compartment. The above typical structure is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,586,347. The prior art combination refrigerator provides an intermediate temperature compartment which comprises a horizontal dike and a vertical dike connected with a door panel which is formed by a synthetic resin and mounted in the refrigerator compartment door. At the top of the intermediate compartment the horizontal dike is placed; at both sides thereof the respective vertical dikes are placed and at the bottom thereof a demountable shelf is placed. Both the front and rear of the intermediate compartment are formed with a door panel. That is, the rear of the intermediate compartment is closed by a permanent hinged cover acting as an inner wall portion, thereby forming a fresh food compartment which can be accessed from the inside as well as from the outside. Further, a part of one of the vertical dikes is cut out, and the cut-out is aligned with a cool air duct to inflow air from the freezer compartment to the intermediate compartment. Thus, the intermediate temperature compartment is generally enclosed and thus prevents the loss of cool air. In other words, the upper portion of the fresh food compartment is confined by the horizontal dike which is formed at the upper portion thereof, and both sides are confined by the two vertical dikes.
However, the procedure for installing the dikes in the prior refrigerator increases the difficulty of manufacture, and the intermediate temperature compartment forms a structure which is colder than the refrigerator compartment and thus can not store a wide variety of the food products.